Friday, August 29, 2008

Beware What You Download Comcast Metered Broadband



According with DSL Reports Comcast will institute a 250 GB cap on its broadband connections starting Oct. 1. Expect other carriers to follow suit and make tiered broadband a reality. Comcast’s arguments about infrastructure and bandwidth costs. Much as I would like to think otherwise, this is the end of the Internet as we know it, are we going back to those days when you have to pay Internet access by the minute?. Even though 250 GB is a generous amount of bandwidth, but we’re moving towards HD video downloads. With HD, each roughly two-hour-long movie is going to consume about 8 GB. Remember, in most of the cases we share our Internet connections with multiple people in a household. So, before you know it, that 250 GB isn’t enough.



According with some analyst "The cap Comcast has put in place will directly impact online digital media growth and innovation seen through services such as Hulu, Netflix, On Networks and Move Networks. Their motivation is to protect its video on demand services and prevent ISPs from becoming commodities as 250 GB"




I think 250GB is a lot but can become nothing in a couple of years in other places like Canada or some European countries caps are very low.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Gotomeeting now is available for Mac computers!


I was listening to the MacBreak Podcast and they mention that Gotomeetings.com is now available for Mac, I really recommend this great teleconferencing tool.

For those who doesn't know about Gotomeetings, this application developed by Citrix is a Web conferencing tool that allows you to meet online rather than in a conference room. It’s the easiest and most cost-effective way to organize and attend online meetings. Patented technology enables co-workers, customers and prospects to view any application running on your PC and now for Apple-Mac users in real time. With the flexibility to meet in person or online, you’ll be able to do more and travel less. Your meeting attendees can easily join your meetings in seconds – they just click a link in an emailed meeting invitation or enter the meeting ID at JoinGoToMeeting.com. You don't need pre-loaded software, no configuration and no purchase or registration required.

Also Free VoIP and audio conferencing for both Mac and PC are now integrated to deliver a seamless, high-quality experience with the newest releases of Citrix® GoToMeeting® and Citrix® GoToWebinar™ . True one-click meetings are now possible with this new combination of VoIP, phone and web conferencing for small-group online meetings and large-group Web events.

At Ten Golden Rules we use Gotomeetings.com for all our client's meetings and it's very reliable. If you want to try it for 30 days go to: gotomeetings.com


Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Google Webmaster Tools Enhances 404 Pages

Google Webmaster Tools recently added an experimental new feature called Enhance 404 pages, to help webmasters simply create a custom 404 page by embedding a widget on their custom 404 pages. The widget suggests other URLs that exist that are relevant to what the user may be looking for. While Google Webmaster Tools says it is not always accurate as far as what website it suggests, I think it's better than not giving you any options of where to go, such as a default 404 page.

Here is what the widget would output on a page if implemented. It will suggest going back to the homepage, sitemap or searching for a specific query.

If you don't have Google Webmaster Tools for your website, you should give it a try. It's free and you can view a lot of information to make sure the pages on your website are being crawled in Google. You can also submit a sitemap to help Google go through all the pages of your site for indexing as well.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Android - The G-Phone (Google Phone)


Almost 1 year since Apple launched his iPHONE and redefined the mobile cell industry adding a very intuitive and easy to use smart phone. Now other manufacturers such LG, Nokia and Motorola are behind the iPhone success producing phones with similar features like the iPHONE. But all of them have a lack of good operating system, applications, etc.

People from Google are seeing this opportunity and they want a piece of the cake offering Android which is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices based on the Linux operating system. It allows developers to write managed code in a Java-like language that utilizes Google-developed Java libraries.

Google will not make the phone, but has helped develop the software that handset manufacturers will install in their devices. Samsung, HTC, LG Electronics, and Motorola are among the companies that have said they will produce phones that run on Android. Also Android is designed to allow independent developers to write their own programs for mobile devices, so Android based phone users will be able to download applications for their phone over the Internet. The first handset to run Android (aka "the Google Phone") has been approved by the FCC. In the documents provided, it appears that we have now a release date for this highly anticipated phone: November 10th, 2008.

So we will see a new G-phones soon

Monday, August 18, 2008

Your TV is DEAD

Is TV dead? Is everything going to be online now? According to an article from the Christian Science Monitor, “the growing number of new deals and new devices being announced suggests that a profound change in the way people watch video- and what video they watch – is under way.”
People are watching video’s when they want and where they want. People can view their mobile phones, desktop, HDTV’s and iPods.

Netflix – will deliver content online. By purchasing a $100 box from Roku you can view 10,000 movie’s through TV.
Sony – will begin offering movies to download from the Playstation.
Apple –sells movies through iTunes and is re-launching Apple TV Player.
Amazon.com – offering Amazon Video on Demand offering access to 40,000 movies and TV shows, only available on a computer.
TiVo – will be supplying video from YouTube
Hulu – was launched in March and offers streaming video of TV shows and movies from NBC and FOX as well as others.
TV manufactures are going to be manufacturing TV sets that will be connected to the Internet allowing web content to be viewed.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Why Twitter is so successful?


I was trying to understand why Twitter is so popular. I opened an account in Twitter and try to understand why people have to follow me and why do I have to follow others. In other words, try to find out a use for this micro blog that only allow you publish 140 words. So I went to the Internet and I found a very interesting post:

Gregor Hochmuth at Techcrunch.com wrote:

“The answer lies in understanding Audience. Twitter has a simple premise: You tweet & the message is pushed to your friends or followers. The actual mechanics are slightly different (messages go to everyone who follows you, whether they’re your “friends” or not, assuming your stream is public) — but from a user’s perspective, the circle of receivers consists only of the people they know”.

So, as Susan explained last week, you can have your own personal news wired and get in touch with the latest news feed from your friends or followers with short messages or histories such as “I’m late today…” , I’m at Affiliate Summit Presentation in Boston today listening to Jay Berkowitz”, etc. So Twitter works and enjoys such strong attachment because it provides real-time access to a well-defined audience.

Be The First To Know Who Barack Obama Picks As His Running Mate

If you’re a supporter of Barack Obama and you use Facebook, you may already know that he is about to make one of the most important decisions of his campaign, which is choosing a running mate. We’ve all heard who are possible candidates, but if you want to know as soon as he chooses, you can.

This hasn’t been done before, which is very cool. There are two ways to get notified. You can either sign up by going to this special page on his website - http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/firsttoknow or you can also text VP to 62262 and receive a text message when he announces his running mate.

Be part of this important moment and sign up.

Friday, August 8, 2008

New Ten Golden Rules Podcast - Robin Cowie, Dave Barry and the TGR team!

The Ten Golden Rules of Internet Marketing Podcast Episode 26 - Do you remember the first viral internet sensation the Blair Witch Project? We met the Producer Robin Cowie and found out what he's doing on the internet today. We have some humourous viewpoints from Dave Barry author and star of tv, newspaper and blogs.

We had calls from our amazing community including Shawn Collins from Affiliate Summit, new media photographer Rosh Sillars, Robert Baron and Nicole Governile.

The Ten Golden Rules team is back with the 'Live from the Blog' segment, Michael reviewed the new search engine Cuil.com, Susan explains how Twitter functions as the fastest news network on the web, Guillermo reports on mobile Digg, Kathryn explains why NOT to use content generators, we also discussed best practices for email opt ins vs. opt out, podfade, we heard from OSI RockStar Janelle Elms and played a Song-of-The-Week Hunting for Witches by Bloc Party. Call us with comments and questions at 206-888-6606



Jay Berkowitz with caller Shawn Collins and Missy Ward from Affiliate Summit

Free Social Media Marketing Webcast

If you're looking to find out more about social media marketing, then you need to attend Search Marketing Now's webcast on "The Social Graph". It's going to cover the basics of social media marketing and how to leverage social networks to your advantage. And knowing Chris Sherman, the presenter, he's sure to put in some higher level points for advanced marketers who are familiar with social media marketing and just want to take their game to the next level.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Google Helps You Know When To Watch Olympic Events

With the 2008 Olympics a day away, there is much excitement for the many events taking place, you may not know when the Olympic Diving event is going to be on. Google can help you out! Just type the event name combined with "Olympics," like "olympic gymnastics," "olympic tennis" and "olympic diving" and you'll see the upcoming dates and times for that specific event.

This area is called a onebox, which is a special result integrated into organic Google results. It is somewhat similar to when you type in "kilometers to miles" in Google and you can get the conversion. Now you have no excuse to not watch the Olympics and can just "google it" easily. :)

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Top Internet Advertising and Marketing Trends At Affiliate Summit East 2008

Jay Berkowitz was selected to present, “The Ten Hottest Strategies for Internet Marketing” for attendees of Affiliate Summit 2008 in Boston at the Seaport Hotel on Monday August 11.

Internet advertising and marketing trends discussed include:

* Micro Communications – Twitter, RSS feeds, and other subscriptions
* Customer Service is the new Marketing Department
* Personal Branding – Online job hunting
* Direct to Consumer Public Relations

His newest book, "The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Workbook," will be available for purchase at the tradeshow as well.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Help me decide 10th Hottest Strategy in Internet Marketing?

I have the honor of presenting at 4:30 this coming Monday at Affiliate Summit in Boston. My presentation is titled "The Ten Hottest Strategies in Internet Marketing", I have 9 strategies finalized in my mind and I'm struggling between the final 2 choices for #10. Please give me your vote - which do you think is a more important trend and for business?

Global - Global business opportunities, capitalizing on stronger economies in China, India, Europe, Australia, parlaying the weak US dollar into business opportunities.

or...

Open Source Technology and Widgets - Open source allows programmers to develop programs that will interact with your technology and software and it is displacing long-time business incumbents (for example are you reading this on Firefox with a few functioning add-ons?). Getting a prospect or a customer to add your widget to their desktop is the ultimate direct marketing opportunity!

Please send me your vote and I'll send you the link to the presentation after Affiliate Summit.

CEO Jay Berkowitz live online radio interview 11:00 AM Wednesday August 6th

Ten Golden Rules CEO and Internet Marketing Guru Jay Berkowitz will be featured on the live radio show "The Business Counselor". The program is live on 1230 am radio in the South Florida market, and via the internet at www.wbzt.com as it streams live from 11:00am to 12:00pm, Wednesday, August 6th, 2008.

The topics for the show will include the power of on line marketing, how businesses can take full advantage of email marketing, Ten Free Tools to Prepare Your Company for a Recession, and personal branding and online job hunting.

Monday, August 4, 2008

New mobile digg.com


Guys from
digg.com have been very active this week. They launched a new mobile website specially designed for smart phones like Treo, Blackberry and the new popular iPHONE. You can reach the mobile website of Digg at m.digg.com. Also they added a new feature or application that will allow anyone who currently uses Facebook to seamlessly become a Digg user and start sharing and digging right away. This allows both Facebook and Digg users to easily share the content they care about with the audience at large.


It’s amazing how social networks on the Internet are connecting people so easily and taking the Internet to a different level of democratization of news and content. Even more amazing is how social networks are allowing marketers access to information for so they can provide the right content to the right audience at the right time. So if you have a smart phone and have never been to digg.com or facebook.com, give it a try today.






Friday, August 1, 2008

A New Breed of Star Gazers


Facebook has birthed a new breed of star gazers. As a 20 year old girl who doesn't know how to use a telescope, I'm the last person you would expect to know about an eclipse.

I found out about it this morning through my Facebook events. One of my friends had invited me a few weeks ago and I received notification of the solar eclipse as it was happening this morning.

As it turns out, Florida was in the moon's penumbra for this eclipse so I wasn't able to see much, but I was still made aware of a world event through Facebook.

Don't Use Auto Content Generation Software

It's not always easy to think of new, original content for your website, and sometimes webmasters are tempted to cut corners by investing in auto content generation software. But before you invest in these tools to generate content, you need to consider:

  • Source of the Content - if you're not writing it, then the content needs to come from somewhere. Most of these tools are using RSS feeds to pull in that information or scraping content from other websites, putting you at risk of creating duplicate content that violates Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
  • Google Doesn't Index RSS Feeds - in December 2007, their blog announced that Google would no longer be indexing RSS feeds because of duplicate content issues. So if the software is using RSS feeds to get the content then those pages created by the software probably won't be indexed.
  • Copyright - Most companies copyright their information. If you're using a tool to scrap content from other websites, you might be violating copyright laws.
Don't invest in auto content generation software, invest in writing original content. Yes, it takes more time and effort, but it's more likely to be indexed, you're not breaking the law, and creates a better user experience.

A new job board powered by Twitter

Twithire a new job board powered by Twitter hat tip to superstar blogger Steve Rubel

BlogTalk Radio Interview with Ten Golden Rules CEO Jay Berkowitz


Ten Golden Rules CEO and keynote marketing speaker Jay Berkowitz was interviewed on John Lawlor's SocialMediology Podcast on Blog Talk Radio.

The interview covers podcasting, live vs. produced shows, podsafe music, passion, K7.net call in lines 206-888-6606, community, The evolution of social media websites MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, recommended reading: Seth Godin's Meatball Sundae Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?, David Meerman Scott's The New Rules of Marketing and PR, Joseph Jaffe's Join the Conversation Join the Conversation: How to Engage Marketing-Weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue, and Partnership, Jay Berkowitz's The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Workbook, Steve Krug's great book on web design Don't Make Me Think Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition